So, I rode up to SFU this afternoon. This is something I try to do once a week, but realistically get around to less than that. I tried riding to work for a while, but I’m not really very useful for an hour or so after the ride, so that didn’t really work.<\/p>\n
I had ridden up two weeks ago after a long hiatus. If anybody had been there to hear me after I got past the SFU sign, they would have heard something like this:<\/p>\n
\npant<\/em>… pant<\/em>… gasp<\/em>… “gonna die”
\npant<\/em>… pant<\/em>… gasp<\/em>… “gonna die”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThis week went better. I said “gonna die” way less often than every three breaths.<\/p>\n
Anyway, as I was grinding up the hill, I started to wonder how many calories I was burning. Even ignoring the forward motion, I was gaining a lot of height. Gaining height means gaining gravitational potential energy<\/a>. Energy is conserved<\/a>, and there was no other energy source around, so I had to be putting out the energy in return.<\/p>\n
According to Google Earth, the Security booth at SFU is about 200 m above Curtis and Duthie. I weigh about 80 kg (which is part of the problem). So, my gain of gravitational potential energy was<\/p>\n
\nE = mgh = 80 kg × 9.8 m\/s2<\/sup> × 200 m
\n= 156800 kg m2<\/sup>\/s2<\/sup> = 156800 J = 37451 cal.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\nSo, that doesn’t sound right. I don’t think I need to eat 65 Big Macs<\/a> to recover from the ride.<\/p>\n